


A most wanted man

by StrawberryLane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternative Perspective, Assumptions, Azkaban, Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Gen, Hogwarts Third Year, Hostage Situations, Ministry of Magic, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 07:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11846898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryLane/pseuds/StrawberryLane
Summary: Being the Minister for Magic has its fair share of perks, but also quite a few downsides. Being asked to remain hopeful and strong in the face of the absolute disaster that is You-Know-Who's most deranged and devoted follower escaping from the wizarding world's most secure prison is one of them.





	A most wanted man

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be honest, I'm not happy with the ending of this fic (but I'm posting it anyway because why not). This has been in my draft pile for well over two years, so I thought I'd try to make it somewhat presentable. Hopefully I succeeded at least a little bit. 
> 
> Also, Sirius Black is my favorite character just about ever.
> 
> I hope you like it.

Cornelius Fudge has been the Minister for Magic for two and a half years when Sirius Black escapes from Azkaban during the summer of 1993.

Being the Minister for Magic has its fair share of perks, but also quite a few downsides. Being asked to remain hopeful and strong in the face of the absolute disaster that is You-Know-Who's most deranged and devoted follower escaping from the wizarding world's most secure prison is one of them.

Cornelius calls for calm. Black is a threat to society and the level of caution, he presses, can't be high enough. He stations Dementors at Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, informs the Prime Minister of the muggle world that Black is an extremely dangerous madman who should be caught at all costs. He has aurors working on the case around the clock.

Somehow, it is still not enough.

*

Cornelius met Sirius Black a few times during the war, prior to the man's arrest. If you'd asked Cornelius back then who he suspected for being a spy for You-Know-Who, Black would've been pretty low on the list.

Handsome as the devil himself, charismatic, always charming, always nice, always ready to do anything for his friends. Loyal to a fault. That's how Cornelius would've described Black back then, should anyone have asked him to give a good descriptor of the man. He, along with everyone else, had been fooled by Black. Even Dumbledore himself had been surprised when the Potters murder by You-Know-Who had been made public knowledge.

In the end, Cornelius supposes, he'd been wrong about who exactly Black had been loyal to.

On the other hand, the Black family had never hidden their pride of being of pure blood and Black's cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, had never hidden her loyalty to the Dark Lord. It shouldn't have come as surprise, Cornelius thinks, that Lestrange brought her cousin into her master's inner circle.

*

After more than a month of being nowhere to be found, Black breaks into Hogwarts during All Hallow's eve, destroying the painting guarding the Gryffindor tower when the Fat Lady refuses to let him inside. According to Dumbledore, the man had slashed the painting to ribbons in anger when being refused entry.

It's a blessing in disguise that Black choose Halloween to break into the castle. Had it been any other day, he would have stumbled headlong across corridors full of students and Merlin knows what a disaster that would have been. Cornelius can't even imagine the number of angered letters he would receive had that been the case.

Cornelius sends teams of aurors to scavenge through the Forbidden Forest and the area surrounding Hogsmeade. They report back having found nothing else than a bunch of centaurs, an old muggle car and a hostile dog.

Cornelius questions Dumbledore in his decision to appoint Remus Lupin as the Defence Against the Dark Arts months earlier. It is a known fact that Lupin is, and has been since childhood, a long-time friend of Sirius Black. Black managed to make it into Hogwarts undetected somehow, after all. Dumbledore simply hums and looks at Cornelius over the rim of his glasses.

It makes Cornelius want to tear his own hair out.

*

Telling Madam Rosmerta about his last inspection of Azkaban and his meeting with You-Know-Who's most devoted servant takes a load of off Cornelius' shoulders. The way Black had seemed as sane as you can possibly be in Azkaban is something he hasn't spoken candidly about to anyone but Dumbledore, but it's something that's been weighing him down for months. Black had seemed more sane surrounded by Dementors day and night than he'd seemed all those years ago, back when he killed Peter Pettigrew and those poor innocent muggles. Back then, he'd been roaring with laughter when Cornelius arrived on the bloody scene, but when Cornelius last saw him in Azkaban, the man had seemed quite bored. He hadn't been shouting incomprehensible things, hadn't laughed at nothing, hadn't been scratching his own face bloody or been screaming at the walls. No, he'd been perfectly capable of speaking normally, of holding a conversation - admittedly in a voice that sounded like he hadn't used it in quite some time.

It had been unnerving, to say the least.

*

The next few months passes in relative peace and by peace Cornelius means that Black keeps well away from Hogwarts and the Potter boy.

Until he doesn't.

Christmas has come and should have gone by in peace if it hadn't been for the convicted murderer. Instead of letting Potter feel the Christmas cheer, Black sends the boy a Firebolt. It's anonymous, of course, but the staff of Hogwarts all seem to believe it's been sent by none other than Black himself in a ploy of- doing what exactly? Bucking Potter off mid-air and letting him meet his end during a Quidditch match?

From what Cornelius remembers, Black has always been creative and a bit of a prankster. It had been fun to be on the sidelines of during the war, when fun times where too far apart to be considered healthy to anyone's mental health, but now? It's terrifying. Because it seems Black has no desire to present at the Potter boy's demise at his hands - no, he's perfectly content to just make sure it happens, however he has to go about it. Granted, it's not the most effective of plans, not with capable teachers attending the matches and watching Potter like hawks throughout, but still. Cornelius can imagine the look of glee on Black's face at the next match had the broom not been confiscated by Minerva Macgonagall. Not only would Black presumably have succeed in killing, or at the very least, seriously injuring Potter, he also would have traumatised hundreds of students all in one go. From what Cornelius knows of Black, he thinks the man would have considered such an event an absolute delight.

*

Cornelius gives the Dementors permission to preform the Kiss on Black if - _when_ \- they find him. He gets letters daily now, personally addressed to him, from worried parents and families and reporters and just about anyone really, about the fact that six months have passed and the Ministry is yet to have made any progress with the Black case. The madman is still on the lose and the trail is considerably colder than it was back in August.

Sometimes Cornelius regrets his decision to run for Minister for Magic.

They reach the tail end of February before anything new happens as far as Black is concerned. This time, the man actually succeeds in breaking into the Gryffindor common room, actually managing to locate and enter the third year boys' dorm room. He hadn't been able to full fill his self-imposed mission of hurting/killing/kidnapping Potter though. In a twist of the story, he'd chosen the wrong bed at first and the boy occupying said bed had woken up to find Sirius Black standing over him with a twelve inch knife in his bony hands.

The boy's screaming had sent Black running. Once again, Cornelius sends aurors to look through the Forbidden Forest and the surrounding areas and yet again they come up with absolutely nothing.

*

The first time Cornelius meets Black since their conversation in Azkaban last summer is – well, quite full of drama.

For the first time in almost a year Cornelius is at Hogwarts on business that has nothing to do with the prisoner himself. In fact, quite the opposite. Cornelius is visiting the school for something as trivial as the execution of a dangerous hippogriff belonging to Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper. It's not a trivial thing in itself, absolutely not, but in the light of the Black-disaster, almost everything feels trivial to Cornelius.

Cornelius, Dumbledore and Macnair, the bloke who's been assigned the task of executing Buckbeak, are on their way back to the school after discovering the hippogriff has somehow broken free while they were all in Hagrid's hut, when they run straight into not only Potter and his two friends, Granger and Weasley, but also Remus Lupin, an unconscious Severus Snape and Sirius Black himself. The mismatched group are standing next to the Whomping Willow, Snape floating a few inches above the ground. A bundle of clothes laying on the ground seems to be the current focus of the group's collective attention. Why, Cornelius has no clue. Signalling to the other two to be quiet, he draws his wand and slowly creeps closer. Lupin sees him first, turning around to say something to Black but stopping at the sight of Cornelius. He opens his mouth, beginning to say something but not a sound is heard. Instead, the man starts to shake uncontrollably and it takes Cornelius to understand why. It's not until Lupin begins to transform that Cornelius remembers that it's the night of the full moon.

Black notices his friend's state at about the same time he notices Cornelius, Dumbledore and Macnair. Through the daze that seem to have taken over him, Cornelius hears Black let out a stream of filthy words and sees the man draw a wand. Pointing it towards Cornelius, still keeping his eyes firmly on Lupin, Black croaks "Everte Statum."

Cornelius is thrown into the air, flying a few good feet backwards. He lands with a thud, all air leaving his lungs. Before he's recovered, Macnair falls to the ground next to him, limbs frozen. Cornelius struggles to get back on his feet. He's not as young as he used to be and being stuck in an office has made him soft, unfit for fieldwork.

Lupin has fully transformed now, but seems to be more interested in the sounds coming from the forest than the group of people surrounding him. Lupin sets off, faster than Cornelius thought possible for a newly transformed werewolf. As he disappears into the forest, Cornelius turns his attention back to Black and the kids.

Black has used the general commotion to grab the children closest to him – Potter and Granger – and begun inching back toward the Whomping Willow. Snape has fallen to the ground, presumably as Black is no longer keeping his wand on him to keep him afloat.

Cornelius watches in disbelief as Black's body begins to disappear down beneath the Whomping Willow.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Cornelius bellows, aiming for Black just as the last of the man disappears out of view. Instead, there's an "oomph," and then Potter, already halfway down the hole, freezes.

The Weasley kid shouts. He's struggling to get up from where he's sitting on the ground and it takes Cornelius a moment to understand why. Weasley's leg is twisted in an odd angle. Black must've broken it, trying to get to Potter, he thinks.

"Oh my," Dumbledore murmurs, slowly walking up to the boy. "Are you all right?" he asks upon reaching the redhead.

"Harry," is all Weasley says, pointing toward his friend. "Yes," Dumbledore agrees, motioning for Cornelius to rescue Potter from the hole he's currently stuck in.

Cornelius does so, while mulling over the fact that his former headmaster turned chief advisor seem unnaturally calm in regards of what's happening. Dumbledore has, unfortunately for Cornelius, always been a very difficult man to read.

Potter, thank Merlin, seems to be unharmed. Cornelius lays him down next to Weasley and then fishes a handkerchief out of his pocket, dragging it across his own brow. Clearly, he's out of shape.

"Let me call the aurors and the Dementors," he tells Dumbledore, who shakes his head.

"Not yet-" he begins, but Cornelius interrupts him.

"Why not? Black's in there, somehow, and this is our chance to catch him!"

"Because you may have prevented him from getting Harry," Dumbledore explains in that patient tone of his, "but Black still has miss Granger with him. I refuse to expose one of my students to unnecessary danger."

Cornelius can't help it - he explodes. "Unnecessary danger?! One of your students is in the company of a known murderer and follower of You-Know-Who, and you call me calling the aurors here unnecessary danger?! I'm doing it to ensure the girl's survival!"

"We have no way of knowing what will happen if you call the aurors and the Dementors here, Cornelius," Dumbledore continues as if Cornelius is nothing but an annoying fly. "This way, with only us here, we can communicate with Black, make him see our way of things."

It's a reasonable thought, but it still makes Cornelius stomp his foot on the ground like a stubborn child. He feels irritable. Before he's come up with a reply, a noise to his right distracts him. It's Snape, waking up.

"Ah, Severus," Dumbledore says, turning his attention toward the potionmaster. "So glad you're waking up."

Snape scowls. Dumbledore raises an eyebrow and smiles. The older man then returns his attention toward the teenage boys on the ground, muttering a counter spell under his breath, freeing Potter of the body freezing charm.

Immediately Potter sits up and begins babbling about Black being an innocent man and Peter Pettigrew being alive. Weasley joins in after a moment of hesitation.

"A Confundus charm, I believe," Snape cuts in. He's pulled himself off of the ground and is straightening out his robes. "They all seem to believe Black to be innocent," he adds.

Cornelius hums sympathetically. "What happens now?" he asks Dumbledore, who's turned his attention toward Macnair, freeing the man from the spell Black cast on him.

"Macnair will make sure Harry and Ron get to Madam Pomfrey to get checked out, to begin with. Severus will tell us what happened in the Shrieking Shack tonight and then we'll make a plan."

Naturally, both Potter and Weasley protest this plan loudly. Black is innocent, they say. There's no need for any action. Hermione is not in any danger.

Snape mutters something about a confundus charm once again and ignores the look of hatred thrown his way by Potter.

Dumbledore repeats the plan again, as if there's been no interruption. "Ron, Harry," he adds, "do as I say and everything will be all right."

*

Eventually, both boys - Ron clinging on Harry - and Macnair make their way back to the castle. Dumbledore turns to Snape and as Snape starts talking Cornelius tries not to show his impatience. This has all taken too long, he thinks. The muggle-born girl probably won't be alive for much longer, if Black even is in the Shrieking Shack still. He could have apparated out of there by now, easily.

"The Shrieking Shack is heavily warded, Cornelius," Dumbledore tells him as if he's heard Cornelius' thoughts. "You can't apparate to or from the shack."

Cornelius nods, like he understand why. He doesn't.

"-So I went to give Lupin his potion," Snape is saying when Cornelius tunes back into the conversation. "He wasn't there. But on his desk I found a map I believe will be of interest to you, headmaster. It showed Lupin, Black and the children all in the Shrieking Shack. I decided there was no time to lose and went after them. Black had already confunded them by the time I arrived; Potter, Weasley and Granger were the ones who relieved me of my wand and blasted me unconscious. I had barely entered the room before I lost consciousness."

"Very well," Dumbledore muses. "Any idea of how Black managed to get all three children into the Shrieking Shack?"

Snape considers this for a moment.

"I believe it may have been Granger," he says at last and Cornelius gapes.

"What?" he asks, unable to stop himself.

"Black has obviously been around for months, hasn't he? Broke in both during Halloween and then again a few months ago. As much as I loathe to admit it, Black is a smart man. He must have known he could use one of the students to gain access to the castle."

"Severus-" Dumbledore says, a warning clear in his voice.

"Well, you're the one who believes Lupin to be innocent. This is the next possible explanation."

"With all due respect, Snape," Cornelius cuts in, believing he knows where Snape is going with this. "Black looks like a skeleton. I know he may have been handsome once upon a time, but I doubt a level-headed girl like the one Hermione Granger seems to be would let herself be turned around by his looks now."

"Well," Snape all but snarls, "In case you've forgotten, Minister, Black is a very manipulative man. He's worked his charm on unsuspecting witches for years; I doubt losing his looks would stop him if he really wanted to. Half of it was always in his personality, anyway."

Cornelius considers this.

"But still-" he says, but Snape cuts him off.

"Granger's been vulnerable all year; taking on a too large amount of work coupled with exhaustion and fighting with your only friends in the world can leave anyone susceptible to manipulation. All Black had to do was wait for the right moment and then present himself as someone willing to listen to Granger cry about the unfairness of Potter siding with Weasley. After that, I believe it was quite easy for him to get close to her."

"But she's thirteen!" Cornelius cries, horrified.

"I do not believe it went that far," Snape tells him coolly. "For all that Sirius Black is capable of, I do not think he has it in him to do something like that. But," he ponders, "he has already proven once what an outstanding actor he is."

Beside them, Dumbledore hums, deep in thought. "Here's what we'll do. I will enter the Shrieking Shack fully visible. You two, however, will hide underneath this," he holds up a shimmery piece of cloth; an Invisibility cloak. "Do not," Dumbledore warns, "do anything unless I tell you to."

*

The tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow is narrow, even more so when you're two fully grown men both trying to fit into the limited space of an Invisibility cloak. "Ouch," Cornelius mutters as Snape once again accidentally steps on his foot. Snape grunts in reply.

The tunnel has begun to ascend when the high-pitched shrieking starts. "Caterwauling charm, I believe," Snape whispers as Dumdledore mutters something that sounds like "Interesting."

They move past the noise, up the stairs. The room on top of the stairs is dusty and destroyed, much like the rest of the house. The windows are boarded up and every piece of furniture, except for a large four-poster bed with dusty hangings, have been destroyed.

Sirius Black is standing in front of the bed, his back to it. Behind him, on the bed, on top of its dusty covers, sits Hermione Granger. Cornelius releases a breath he didn't know he'd been holding at the sight of her physically unharmed. He'd been afraid they'd find her body and not much else. Snape nudges him, signalling for him to be quiet.

"Sirius," Dumbledore greets the skeletal man in front of them, lowering his wand.

"Headmaster," Black nods back, not lowering his own wand. His eyes are roaming over Cornelius and Snape, as if he expects someone else to come dashing through the doorway to attack him.

"How are you?" Dumbledore continues amiably, as if it's an everyday occurrence to speak to a man convicted for mass murder.

"I've been better," Black admits, shuffling backwards until his legs hits the edge of the bed and he sinks down, settling down next to Granger. He's still holding his, well, Snape's wand, ready to attack at any moment.

"Miss Granger?" Dumbledore asks, looking around the room.

"I'm fine, headmaster," Granger says, shuffling forward on the bed. Beside her, Black doesn't move. "How's Ron and Harry? And Professor Snape and Lupin?"

"Harry and Ron are fine, they're currently being seen to by Madam Pomfrey. Professor Snape is awake, in somewhat of a bad mood and Professor Lupin... I'm afraid I do not know, miss Granger."

The girl exhales at that. "I hope he'll be all right," she whispers and Black shifts beside her.

"Remus' stronger than all of us combined. He's done this hundred of times before, he'll be fine." Black chuckles, humourlessly. His laugh sounds rusty and it soon turns into a cough.

"Why don't you come up to the castle, Sirius?" Dumbledore suggests, his voice kind and neutral.

Black snorts. "Right, so that the Dementors can descend upon me the moment I reach the gates? I don't think so."

"I won't allow that to happen," Dumbledore tells the room at large, confidently, and Cornelius gets the feeling it's more aimed at him than to reassure Black.

*

Later, Cornelius can't quite remember what happened. All he knows is that one moment he'd been hidden underneath the invisibility cloak contemplating how to get Sirius Black to come up to the castle and the Dementors without risking harm to the other inhabitants of the Shrieking Shack and in the next moment a full-grown werewolf had come bounding towards him out of nowhere. Cornelius must have tripped over the invisibility cloak and fainted from sheer fright, because when he regains his senses, he's in a bed in the hospital wing.

His head aches something ridiculously.

Arguing – male – voices can be heard from another room, growing in strength as they come closer and closer to the hospital.

"I'm telling you, headmaster, that this is Potter's work!"

It's Snape, and his tone is absolutely scathing. Cornelius studies him from his corner of the room as the potionsmaster enters, followed by Dumbledore.

"Ah, Cornelius," his former headmaster tells him, eyes twinkling, "What a relief to see you've woken up."

Snape just glares.

"Albus, what on earth happened?" Cornelius asks, trying to detangle himself from the bedsheets.

"It appears Sirius Black has escaped custody, Cornelius," Dumbledore begins, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. "After Remus entered the shack and you lost consciousness, I was, with the help of Severus, able to use the general chaos to detain Sirius and bring him back to the castle. We put him in Flitwick's office for safekeeping."

"What happened to Lupin?"

"He was hit by a stray spell, but Madam Pomfrey assured me that he will be all right, given a bit of rest."

"And what happened to the girl?"

"Miss Granger is quite all right. A few bruises and scrapes, but nothing serious."

Cornelius nods as he mulls all of this over. "You said Black escaped again? What do you mean by that?"

Dumbledore hums for a moment. "Well, he is no longer awaiting his fate in Flitwick's office. I've come to the conclusion that means he's once again on the run."

"How did he manage that?" Cornelius doesn't even try to hide the hysterical note in his voice.

"Sirius Black is a very clever man. He must have figured out a way past the wards. As you probably heard," Dumbledore glances at Snape, "Severus doesn't agree with me."

*

In the end, they don't find Sirius Black, even after combing through all of Great Britain twice. The man is simply nowhere to be found. As time goes on, the escaped prisoner becomes less of a priority and Cornelius takes most of the Ministry's aurors off the case.

It's not a good look for the Minister for Magic to spend all of his resources trying to find one man for so long. Doing so tends to leave people dissatisfied.

 


End file.
